A few observations

As a bit of a sports junkie, I did spend a little bit of time looking at reader comments on online articles about non-BCS teams. I made a few observations I thought I'd share about non-BCS fans.

1) Your comments are not bulletin board material. What you say will never be read by any coach or player, it will never be placed up in a locker room as a motivator, and the only people who will ever look at it are other sports fans who happen to read that article within 10 minutes after you wrote your un-insightful comment.

2) It's OK for you to overlook a team. OU fans have every right to look past Chattanooga, BYU fans can look past Northern Iowa, and Boise State fans, feel free to count Idaho State as a W now. I guarantee that no matter how little you respect the opponent, it won't change the way that your team prepares for the game. If you cheer less loudly in the stadium or TiVo the game or decide not to watch the game at all, it will have zero impact on the outcome. The coaches and players (and in the Pac 10, the refs) ultimately decide the outcome of the game, not you.

3) Your rival will not go 0-12. Very few teams go 0-12 as it is, and if a team is good enough to have a rival, it is good enough to win at least ONE game. In fact, if your rival is in a top 25 poll, any even quasi-reputable poll, they will almost assuredly win 7 games. So Utah fans, BYU will not do worse than 8-4 (even if Max Hall gets hurt). BYU fans, Utah will not finish below 4th in the Mountain West Conference. New Mexico fans, you talk to trash to anybody who has had a 10-win season in the last twenty years and you are out of your league. Fresno State fans, win the WAC ONE TIME before you bring any smack talk, as the WAC championship can be won, regardless of how difficult your non-conference schedule is. There are many other sets of fans whom I could address but these are the 4 brashest sets that I found in my readings.

4) No matter how good you think your argument is, it is pathetic for you to discuss why your team should be selected in the next BCS conference expansion. If and when the Pac-10, Big East, or Big 10 want to expand, they will have rational and comprehensive discussions, without drinking any Red, Blue, or whatever color Kool-aid you drink. It sounds like begging when non-BCS fans discuss this on comment boards. "Oh please let us in, look at how good our football or basketball team was the last few years. We can be an asset." If your school brings in enough revenue to merit discussion, you have a chance, regardless of how successful your program is. You think Arizona and Arizona State got in to the Pac-10 because of how successful they were? Nope, but they were lucrative enough to get in to the Pac-8 when it went to 10.

5) Your star QB or HB is not a Heisman frontrunner, unless he was a finalist last year. While 13 out of 73 Heisman winners have come from teams currently considered mid-majors, only 2 of them have been since 1964. One of those two was Andre Ware from Houston, who was in the Southwest Conference at the time (which would be the equivalent of a BCS conference today). Call it unfair if you like, but your guy doesn't stand a real chance. Ty Detmer (the other non-BCS Heisman winner) passed for over 4,500 yards the year BEFORE he won the Heisman and for over 5,000 yards the year he won it. His team also beat the #1 team in the country that season. The only thing less likely than your guy winning the Heisman is your team playing for the National Championship. In fact, those two would probably have to happen together under the current format.

6) If your team finds a way to go undefeated, it will not be the most impressive feat of all time. While very few, if any, teams go 12-0 in a season, there have been plenty throughout the history of college football. Some have done it in the VERY DIFFICULT SEC. Some have done it playing difficult non-conference schedules. Some have done it several years in a row. So if Tulsa, BYU, TCU, Utah, Boise State, or Fresno State find a way to do it, it might be the greatest season in the history of your school, but your squad won't even be considered as one of the greatest teams of all-time. It will be hard enough to convince people to consider you one of the greatest teams of THIS SEASON. The have-nots are pretty insignificant in the eyes of the haves. Always have been, always will be. Next time you feel that way, remember that, as you sit and read your paper at your big, warm breakfast, you don't want to read about starving homeless people all the time. You want to read about other people like you, who aren't going hungry, who have a roof over their heads. Take that analogy to the bank.

7) It's OK to refer to your team as "we" or "us." Many people making comments criticize others for saying we. I bet those same critics are watching the Olympics talking "us" and "we" as the USA brings home medals. Did you swim a single lap? Did you take a single run around the track? Did you prance around in the floor exercise? It's OK to say "we" even if you didn't do a darn thing to help the team, which you didn't! Fans have been taking ownership of their teams/players since Adam and Eve, or whenever "sport" was invented.

8) Fans hate BYU. The two articles that showed up on the front page of ESPN College Football this offseason had more than twice as many comments to them than any other article written about a non-BCS school. Most were shots at BYU, its fans, or the church that supports the institution. Some were in good fun, some were flat out Al Sharpton-like (full of hatred and bigotry), and others were just jealous fans of other non-BCS schools that haven't had the same LONG-TERM success BYU has had (forgetting those few bad seasons in this decade). Just to emphasize how little non-BCS teams matter, even though the number of comments on BYU articles was twice that of other non-BCS schools, that number would be below average for an article about a BCS team.